5 Essential Reading Types Every Student Should Be Familiar With

Mastering these essential reading types equips students with invaluable skills for comprehending and interpreting diverse materials in their educational journey.

Do you realize that you read in different ways? Of course, you may not be aware of what they are called but you may have already tried some of them. Do you use the same method for searching for your name in a scholarship list on the notice board, for reading your class notes or for reading an interesting pace-setter or mills and boon novel? When you want to find the latest newspaper reports about a weekend sporting event, do you begin reading from the first page till you get to the last page that contains your sports report? So, you see you already use different methods.

There are 5 types of reading from which you could select:

1. Scanning
2. Skimming
3. Light reading
4. Word-by-word reading
5. Study reading or reading to study

These 5 types of reading are explained in details below

5 types of reading every student should know

1. Scanning

When you search for your name on a list on a notice-board, you are scanning. Your eyes dart quickly over all other names until you get to your own. You spend enough time on all the other names to recognize that they are not yours but you are not likely to remember them after you have found yours.

2. Skimming

This, like scanning, is an extremely fast reading pace, used mainly to get the general gist in a text. You skim “to see what is there”. It gives you a general overview of an article, or chapter, or whatever it is you want to read. You try to note the rough content through the headings, figures, titles, opening sentences of paragraphs and so on.

You skim for two purposes. One is to decide whether the text is useful for your purpose. This is what you do when you check out a book in a bookshop. You may find out that you do not need it. Next, it prepares you for a more detailed study of the text. If you have skimmed a book on the new bookshelf in the library, you then decide to settle down to read a useful chapter and make notes.

3. Light reading

When you read leisurely, this is light reading. You read at a pace you feel is comfortable. You may quicken the pace if the text is interesting and full of suspense. But if part of the texts is boring, difficult or irrelevant, you may skip them. You do not make any effort to study or absorb the material. You may be reading for immediate pleasure or entertainment and not necessarily to be able to recall the details. This method is not very useful for studying.

4. Word-by-word reading

To understand certain texts, especially in specialized areas of knowledge, you have to slow down your reading speed so considerably that you have to read each word in detail. Materials in a foreign language you are not familiar with, mathematical figures, equations and formulae, or even unusual medical or pharmaceutical words may have to be read out one by one.

Your speed could drop to less than 100 words per minute. With mathematics or a foreign language, your speed could drop to between 20 to 50 words per minute over a few lines of text. For instance, Latin words (such as exempligratia or legum baccalaureus) or medical terms (like carboxymethyl cellulose sodium or activated polymethylsiloxane usp) cannot be initially read with speed.

5. Study reading

This reading pace is a careful one, usually slow and used when the material has to be evaluated or summarized. It is slower than the normal rate where your interest is to get the main ideas and their relations to details or to appreciate the style of writing. Here, your intention is more deliberate, particularly if you want to memorize or be able to retain and recall what you have been reading. This deliberate method is the one you require at the tertiary level. Therefore, you need to master any of the several study type techniques available.

Even after getting to know about the different types of reading, it’s wise to know the different reading deficiencies and their remedies. Kindly drop your comments below and don’t forget to hit the share button.

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